Conan O’Brien Manages to Work a Jay Leno Impression Into His First Night As Host of the Tonight Show

While it is understandably difficult to gauge how Conan O’Brien is going to fashion the Tonight Show in his image after just one hour on air, there was one moment last night that gave viewers a bit of insight into just exactly how tense the transfer of power between Jay and Conan was. You see, after some 26 minutes on the air, Conan took his seat behind the Tonight Show desk for the very first time. He began by acknowledging and thanking Jay Leno for 17 faithful years of service to the program, at which point he asked the audience to “give it up” for Jay. After three token (and not entirely heartfelt) hand claps, Conan launched right into some banter that poked fun at Jay’s new 10 p.m. show (“He’ll be back on the air in, I think, two days”). He then made the strange decision to do a quick Jay Leno impression (which, truth be told, was more of an impression of Howard Stern’s Leno impression), which went over very awkwardly with the pro-Jay Tonight Show audience. Watch for yourself and let us know if you think it was all in good fun or if there were some shades of underlying tension there.